


Lost Souls

by forgetme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Father-Son Relationship, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Canon, Regret, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 06:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9371204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetme/pseuds/forgetme
Summary: inspired by the Konoha shinden Onsen novel





	

The familiar feel of his tantô’s cloth-wrapped hilt, smoothened over the years by the grip of his calloused hands, was shocking. Using it close to every day of his life had rendered it harmless in his eyes, friendly, a trusted companion. He was the one who cared for this blade, who kept it sharp and well-fed with blood and entrails. His father’s last gift to him.

_Sit up straight. Look people in the eye. Never forget who you are._

His skin prickled where the tip of the blade grazed his bare stomach. Heavy hands, the sting of a slap.

_Of all my children, why must you be the only one who survived?_

When they found his sisters, crows had already taken their eyes. They were pulling black snakes from their bloated stomachs.

_You have to stand for the clan now._

How could he have failed like this? This house was in ruins, the wooden floors splintering beneath his knees, worms crawling in their dark depths. His father’s legacy would crumble, but would that be so bad? As long as Kakashi lived, there was a future for their bloodline, there was hope.

He would clear the path for his son, all he had to do was erase himself, the most grievous obstacle.

His own father had died when Sakumo had reached adulthood. Only then had he been able to really stand up straight, the weight of his father’s bruising gaze had lifted off him. For the first time, he had been able to breathe and he had found salvation soon after. Someone who believed in him, who could see the man underneath veil of names and titles.

Every night, he pictured her face.

If he closed his eyes now, the hilt in his hands, warmed by his own skin, could be her palm. Her fingers fanned out toward his body in invitation. _Take my hand, come with me._

Though the words she had actually spoken were, _Protect him, promise me. Keep our baby safe._

He’d failed her like he’d failed his clan, like he’d failed his village, like he would fail their child. 

Shame. Sakumo knew there was only one thing that could erase it. Not tears – men did not cry, this he had learned the hard way – but blood. 

His blood could wash his name clean – Kakashi’s name. This way, he could have it all in the end, he could save honor without having to send his comrades to their deaths. Spilling his own blood would make up for not spilling theirs. He _could_ have it all – contrary to what sensei had taught him - just in exchange for his life. And that, he knew now, was a worthless thing anyway.

This was in his head as he plunged the blade into his belly:

The morning sun on her face, the wind playing with her hair, her hand in his.

Holding their baby in his arms for the first time, Kakashi, so small that he seemed weightless while still somehow making Sakumo’s arms hurt with the effort of holding something so precious.

Their eyes, determined, ready to go to their deaths for the village, waiting for his orders.

But they were the village, his brothers and sisters, and if he let them die, who would be left to protect?

Sensei’s disgust and Hiruzen-sama’s sadness.

Kakashi’s small hands, the first time they wrapped around the hilt of his tantô.

And last, the stone which now would never bear his name.

It was neither quick nor painless, but, in the end, it was a death.

***

Sakumo woke up in darkness. He blinked at his floor, bloodstained where he lay on his side, his knees drawn up to the gaping wound in his stomach. The house was as silent and still as the grave it was supposed to be and yet he was awake and in no pain. His tantô was gone. Sakumo placed his empty right hand on the wound. It was cold and dry; the blood had stopped flowing and hardened into a crust. If he were to push, his hand would slip inside his body, sucked into the swamp of his entrails. He sat up, marveling through dread and horror, at the ease with which he did it.

Sakumo knew shock, he’d been in shock countless times, shell-shocked, concussed, grief-stricken, close to death. This was not shock. He just felt… nothing. No sound could be heard inside the house, only his soft, regular breathing.

Sakumo was careful not to make any noise as he slowly got up. Kakashi couldn’t see him like this. His son should still be out on a mission with Minato-kun. Sakumo had chosen this day precisely because of that mission and the appointment he had with the Hokage in the afternoon – it was another disciplinary meeting. He had planned on missing the hearing, then they would have sent a messenger to his house. A shinobi who didn’t know him, or didn’t know him well at least, and that person would have discovered—

Without thinking, Sakumo had reached out to brace himself on the wall as he got up. Now he froze. Where the solid wall of his bedroom should have been, his hand was meeting no resistance. And yet he could see the wall clearly. As clearly as he could see his hand slipping into the dark wood.

An illusion? He should have realized it sooner!  

In an instant, Sakumo was on his feet, making the seals, focusing his—

There was nothing. He couldn’t feel his chakra. It was as though he had none, nothing but cold emptiness inside his body. What kind of jutsu could do something like this?

He closed his eyes, focusing once more, listening inside himself, for something, some kind of answer.

Complete, resounding silence.

There was nothing.

Nothing.

No heartbeat. No chakra, no warmth in his body. Panic rising, Sakumo deliberately held his breath. He counted and counted. Nothing happened. It didn’t matter whether he breathed or not.

He had succeeded.

He was dead.

***

In a daze, Sakumo left the house and wandered out of the deserted Hatake compound into the streets of Konoha. Even at night, there were still a few people going about their business. But none of them reacted to him, whatever he did, they completely ignored him, and if he didn’t step out of the way in time, they walked right through his body as though he was made of nothing but mist. There was no sensation when this happened, just a moment of darkness, a veil obscuring his vision, and then they were behind him, walking away.  

Calling out to them was pointless; it was clear that they could neither see nor hear him. Sakumo had vanished from the world of the living. But where was he supposed to go now? Why was he still here?

He walked down the street towards the village center, marveling at the way his feet still stayed on the ground. Death had not turned him into a floating spirit; he moved just the way he had when he was still alive.  

Sakumo was thinking about Kakashi, trying to figure out where his son might be now and how painful it would be to see him again. After the last time – the time he had thought would be their last, when he had sent Kakashi off to his mission the previous evening. Kakashi had been anxious but he’d put on a brave face because he _was_ brave and smart and strong and Sakumo had smiled for him, though it broke his heart. He’d said goodbye and tousled Kakashi’s hair and wished for the moment to last forever, to sear itself into his mind and remain beyond his death.

The memory hurt, but it dissolved around the hushed voices of two chûnin walking past.

“—couldn’t believe it.”

“Seriously.”

“I mean, he had to do it, obviously, and good riddance, but….”

“Shame that the kid found him.”

“Yeah, you know.”

Sakumo stopped in his tracks, his feet frozen to the ground as one of the chûnin passed right through him, putting a beating heart into his empty chest for a second, then taking it away. Kakashi. It couldn’t be true. Kakashi’s mission was not supposed to be over. Even though it was night now and Sakumo had done his deed before the break of dawn, even though he had lost hours, it couldn’t have happened that way. The messenger, they would have sent a messenger and Kakashi wasn’t supposed to return until tomorrow morning.

He started running, mindlessly for the first minute, then realizing. If Kakashi wasn’t in the house and if he truly was back in the village, there was only one place where he could be.

***

Namikaze Minato lived in an apartment not far from the village center. Ever since Minato had become Kakashi’s teacher three years ago, Kakashi had stayed there from time to time when Sakumo was away on longer missions, so Sakumo knew the way by heart.

He didn’t need to knock on the door – there would have been no point. He walked right in, the sensation the same as when people walked through him. The lights were on in the hallway and the first thing Sakumo spotted, as though his gaze was magically drawn to it, was the pair of small sandals sitting in the corner by the door. Kakashi’s.

Hushed voices floated to his ear as he walked past the kitchen.

Kushina and Minato were whispering to each other, their tones sharp and serious.

The door was closed tightly but Sakumo stepped through it anyway and almost into Minato who stood there, his back to the door.

“—in two days,” Minato said gravely, “it probably won’t be a… much of a ceremony. Sandaime-sama will say a few words, though.”

By the sink Kushina nodded as she poured a bowl of leftover soup down the drain. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, standing out against her pale skin. Sakumo had never seen her look so tired. He moved awkwardly between them, careful not to step into the half-cleared dinner table although he knew it wouldn’t matter if he did. The two were as oblivious to his presence as everyone before them had been.

“Is he asleep?”

“Pretending to be, I think.” Kushina didn’t raise her eyes from the dirty dishes she was piling in the sink.

It hurt to think of his son and as much as Sakumo needed to see Kakashi, he dreaded to witness the damage he had done to the person he loved more than anything.

“I should go check on him.” Despite his words, Minato remained where he was a moment longer, watching his girlfriend as she turned on the faucet and began scrubbing at the dishes. “Okay,” he said finally, tiredly, and turned to the door.

Just when he had pulled the door open, it suddenly burst out of Kushina, this rush of words, “Minato! I’ve made up my mind! We should adopt Kakashi! I’m ready to be a mother, you know! And I think you would be a great father! I know we’re young and I only just got my promotion and we did break up last month, but that was only for a couple of weeks, and I wasn’t even really that mad, you know!” The dishes clinked in the sink. She’d dropped them and her soapy hands wiped at the corners of her eyes. “And I’m sorry for that. Anyway, Kakashi is all alone now… and he needs… he needs someone…” Sakumo had to look away, it felt as though the blade had been plunged into his guts again, but he still heard the soft addendum. “We could be a family… Right?”

Minato turned around, the anguish Sakumo felt etched into his expression. “Kushina… Kakashi is a chûnin and my subordinate. I can’t adopt him. Believe me, I’ve thought about it – I’ve even asked Hiruzen-sama. It’s just not possible.”

“Chûnin or not, he’s only seven, you know!”

“I know, but I’m his jônin sensei; I can’t be his father.”

It was too much for Sakumo, not just Kushina who seemed close to tears again and Minato, whoses eyes, too, were bright and wavering, it was the word father that cut him to the quick, the idea that someone else might take that place and the rational realization that someone should because it would be good for Kakashi. Someone better had to be out there. Someone better than Sakumo who could be there for his son when he couldn’t.

He slipped out of the kitchen through the thin wall, the young couple’s voices following him into the next room, so he crossed it as well – the living-room – and passed through another wall. The darkness that greeted him there was heavy and miserable. Instantly, he knew that he was not alone and he wouldn’t have needed to look to recognize the soft sounds of irregular, pained breathing.

But he did.

He couldn’t have averted his eyes if he’d wanted to, and he told himself that he didn’t want to. That he needed to see.

There, in the bed in the corner of the sparsely furniture room, lay his son, one hand fisted in the sheets, the blankets drawn up to obscure everything but the silver shock of hair on the pillow.

Kakashi wasn’t asleep and as he thought himself alone, he was not putting much effort in pretending.

He was crying, Sakumo realized, and not the way he used to cry when he was little with great gulping sobs, tears dripping from his eyes onto Sakumo’s neck when he picked him up. No,  Kakashi cried almost soundlessly, desperate not to be heard. It was the way Sakumo himself had cried that day not too long ago, the way he wished he could cry now because seeing his son suffer like this was worse than all eight hells combined.

“Kakashi,” he whispered, his voice rough, as he tried to sit on the bed. He wanted to put a hand on his little boy’s shaking shoulders, but he didn’t dare for fear it would slip merely through Kakashi’s solid flesh, shattering any illusion of comfort.

“It’s going to be okay, Kakashi. It’s better this way, believe me. In a few years, you’ll have forgotten. It won’t hurt anymore.”  More than anything, Sakumo wanted to believe this. He wanted to vanish from Kakashi’s mind. He wanted his son to truly be free.

But Kakashi couldn’t hear him and the future was still far away, leaving Sakumo alone with his grieving child and the child all alone.

***

Something happened around dawn. Sakumo couldn’t remember when he opened his eyes and it was night again. All he knew was that he had lost time. He’d not been there when Kakashi, who had fallen asleep at some point in the small hours from sheer exhaustion, had woken up and gone about his first day as an orphan.

But Sakumo was back at night and Kakashi was in bed again, crying himself to sleep again, deaf to his father’s words.

 ***

This was Sakumo’s existence now, at night, he woke and watched over his grieving child. He listened to Kushina and Minato talking about Kakashi and the future; he walked away when they mentioned the funeral.

And then came that day. The day Kakashi had moved back into their house. It was just after dusk and he was alone in bed, as miserable as ever, leaving Sakumo to wander the house, truly a lost spirit now.

He slipped out into the garden, already showing signs of overgrowing, bushes reaching past the fence, weeds working their way up between the stone path to the front door. Sakumo looked up at the moon, a sharp sickle that gave very little light. He was basking in his misery and regret more than its faint glow when he sensed someone approach in the shadows of the trees.

Cold clarity struck him then. If Kakashi was attacked, he could neither warn nor aid his son, all he could do was bear silent witness the way he had ever since his death. If it had been hard to watch Kakashi cry, how much worse would it be to watch him bleed?

Instinctively, Sakumo ducked out of sight, though of course this action was unnecessary to the point of ridiculousness.

And then he relaxed when he saw the small figure landing on a tree just inside the fence.  It was just Gai, who had come out of concern for his friend. Sakumo sent thoughts of gratefulness the boy’s way and straightened up to get a closer look. He’d always liked Gai for his tireless efforts and optimism, though Kakashi was often exasperated with the other boy.

Now Gai was crouching almost on the tip of the tree branch, his full attention on the house. Sakumo wandered over, until he was almost right underneath the boy and looked up. As expected, Gai was in his usual spandex and legwarmers and the faint breeze stirred the ends of the bandana around his neck.

His tongue loosened by relief that it was a friend and not an enemy who had come for his boy, Sakumo decided to give Gai a few words of thanks. They wouldn’t do anything, but they might at least make Sakumo himself feel a bit more human. “Gai, thank you for looking after my son. I hope you will continue—“

His sentence was interrupted by a gasp and a scream as Gai suddenly flailed and lost his footing. With a thud he crashed into the bushes beneath the tree, then remained lying on his back as though he had been struck by lightning.

Sakumo stared at the kid. And the kid, Maito Gai, stared right back at him, his eyes as big as saucers.

“Sa-Sa-Sa-kumo-san…” Gai whispered. “Your stomach--!”

A second ticked by; shock had rendered Sakumo speechless. Unsure what to do, he extended his hand to the boy, to help him up. This movement seemed to break whatever spell Gai was under. He let out a blood-curdling scream and scramble to his feet, then he took off running as though an entire army of hell demons was chasing him.

“Wait!” Sakumo called into the night.

Needless to say Gai didn’t. But he _had_ seen Sakumo and Sakumo knew where he could find him again.

**Author's Note:**

> In the Konoha shinden onsen novel, there's a scene where Gai sees a ghost and is totally freaked out by it while Kakashi who sleeps in the same room doesn't notice anything and shows no reaction at all. So that got me thinking, what if Gai could see ghosts and this weird AU was born.


End file.
